province for our own use. They are lent out upon good security, chiefly real, at the interest of five per cent. The borrowers are allowed a long term for payment, and the sums borrowed being divided into equal portions, they are obliged to pay one of these with the interest of the whole, every year during the term. This renders the payments very easy; and as no person is permitted to borrow a large sum, a great number are accommodated. The consequences of such regulations are obvious. These bills represent money in the same manner that money represents other things. As long therefore as the quantity is proportioned to the uses, these emissions have the same effects, that the gradual introduction of additional sums of money would have. People of very small fortunes are enabled to purchase and cultivate land, which is of so much consequence in settling new countries, or to carry on some business, that without such assistance they would be incapable of managing: for no private person, would lend money on such favourable terms. From the borrowers the currency passes into other hands, increases consumption, raises the prices of commodities, quickens circulation, and after communicating a vigour to all kinds of industry, returns in its course into the possession of the borrowers, to repay them for that labour which it may properly be said to have produced. They deliver it, according to the original contracts, into the treasury, where the interest raises a fund without the imposition of taxes, for the public use.

While emissions are thus conducted with prudence, they may be compared to springs whose water an industrious and knowing farmer spreads in many meandering rivulets through his gardens and meadows, and after it has refreshed all the vegetable tribes it meets with, and has set them a growing, leads it into a reservoir, where it answers some new purpose.

If it could be possible to establish a currency throughout the colonies, on some foundation of this kind, perhaps greater benefits might be derived from it, than would be generally believed without the trial.

VI. MISCELLANEOUS FEATURES OF ECONOMIC LIFE

1 New England being the oldest of our American colonies, the best parts of it may be supposed to be granted away or purchased, which is the case; but it is not thence to be apprehended that the greatest part of this large province is cultivated in the southern divisions the country is well settled, so as for many miles together to have some resemblance of old England, but even in these there are very large tracts of forest left, which are private property, and consequently cannot now be patented. The richest parts remaining to be granted, are on the northern branches of the Connecticut river, towards Crown Point, where are great districts of fertile soil still unsettled. The north part of New Hampshire, the province of Main, and the territory of Sagadahock; have but few settlements in them compared with the tracts yet unsettled; and they have the advantage of many excellent ports, long navigable rivers, with all the natural advantages that are found in other parts of this province. I should further observe, that these tracts have, since the peace, been settling pretty fast: farms on the river Connecticut are every day extending beyond the old fort Dummer, for near thirty miles; and will in a few years reach to Kohasser, which is near two hundred miles; not that such an extent will be one tenth settled, but the new comers do not fix near their neighbours, and go on regularly, but take spots that please them best, though twenty or thirty miles beyond any others. This to people of a sociable disposition in Europe would appear very strange, but the Americans do not regard the near neighbourhood of other farmers; twenty, or thirty miles by water they esteem no distance in matters of this sort; besides, in a country that promises well the intermediate space is not long in filling up. Between Connecticut river, and Lake Champlain, upon Otter Creek, and all along Lake Sacrament, and the rivers that fall into it, and the whole length of Wood Creek, are numerous settlements made since the peace, by the Acadians, Canadians, and others from different parts of New England. This whole neighbourhood is a beautiful country, and

1 American Husbandry [1775], I, 47–50, 189–191, 122-124, 166–167, 80-81, 66, 103, 391, 393-395.

possesses as rich a soil as most in New England. Let me also remark here, that the new settlers in these parts have cultivated common wheat with good success, so that they have more fields of it than of maize, which is not the case in the southern parts of New England; to what this difference is owing I have not been informed.

In the province of Main, particularly on the rivers which fall into the sea near Brunswic, there are many settlements made by Germans who have come over since the war; they are in general in a thriving condition, as most of the settlers are in North America that are well situated for an immediate communication with the sea; ships come very regularly to all the ports on this coast to take in loadings of corn, salted provisions, and lumber for the West Indies; by which means the farmers (who also are engaged pretty deeply in the fishery on these coasts) have a ready opportunity of conveying all their surplus. products to a regular market, the great thing wanted in Canada. But still these northern coasts of Main and Sagadahock, are under the fatal influence of that freezing climate, which is bad enough in the south parts of New England, but here approaches to the severity of Nova Scotia, though not so much involved in fogs. .

The new settlers upon the uncultivated parts of the province, are either such as go backward to the waste country, and take up what land they please, paying the fixed fees to the proprietors; or such as buy uncultivated spots of other planters, who have more than they want, or chuse to sell in this case, they make as good a bargain as they can; but the land is dearer than that which is had of the proprietors. It is remarkable to see the small tracts that men will buy with a view to support a whole family.

The progress of their work is this; they fix upon the spot where they intend to build the house, and before they begin it, get ready a field for an orchard, planting it immediately with apples chiefly, and some pears, cherries and peaches. This they secure by an enclosure, then they plant a piece for a garden ; and as soon as these works are done, they begin their house : some are built by the countrymen without any assistance, but these are generally very bad hovels; the common way is to agree

with a carpenter and mason for so many days work, and the countryman to serve them as a labourer, which, with a few irons and other articles he cannot make, is the whole expence: many a house is built for less than twenty pounds. As soon as this work is over, which may be in a month or six weeks, he falls to work on a field of corn, doing all the hand labour of it, and, from not yet being able to buy horses, pays a neighbour for ploughing it; perhaps he may be worth only a calf or two and a couple of young colts, bought for cheapness; and he struggles with difficulties till these are grown; but when he has horses to work, and cows that give milk and calves, he is then made and in the road to plenty. It is surprising with how small a sum of money they will venture upon this course of settling; and it proves at the first mention how population must increase in a country where there are such means of a poor man's supporting his family and in which, the larger the family, the easier is his undertaking.

In general, the settlers come with a small sum of money, very many of them with none at all, depending on their labour for three, five, or seven years to gain them a sum sufficient for taking a plantation, which is the common case of the foreign emigrants of all sorts. It is common to see men demand, and have grants of land, who have no substance to fix themselves further than cash for the fees of taking up the land; a gun, some powder and shot, a few tools, and a plough; they maintain themselves the first year, like the Indians, with their guns, and nets; and afterwards by the same means with the assistance of their lands; the labour of their farms, they perform themselves, even to being their own carpenters and smiths: by this means, people who may be said to have no fortunes, are enabled to live, and in a few years to maintain themselves and families comfortably. But such people are not to be supposed to make a profit in cash of (for) many years, nor do they want, or think of it. And as to the planters who begin their undertakings with small sums of money; though they do better, and even make a considerable profit by their business, yet they are very far from equalling what I have now described; this is from want of money, for I might add, that not one new settler in a thousand is possessed of a clear three thousand pounds.

The conclusion which I deduce from these particulars is, that new settlements in New York are undertaken to good advantage, profit in money considered, only by those who have a good sum of money ready to expend; and by this term, I mean particularly men who have from two to five thousand pounds clear; in Britain such people cannot from the amount of their fortune get into any valuable trade or manufacture, unless it is by mere interest, or being related to persons already in trade. But it is evident, that in New York, they may, with such a sum of money, take, clear, stock, and plant a tract of land that shall not only amply support them in all the necessaries of life, but at the same time yield a neat profit sufficient for the acquisition of a comfortable fortune. . . .

Many of the planters, especially in the back parts of the province, where the wild tracts are adjoining, keep great flocks of cattle some of them have from forty to sixty horses; and four or five hundred head of horned cattle, oxen, cows, bulls, calves and young cattle; they let them run through the woods not only in summer, but also in winter; which is a circumstance that makes them very inattentive to the providing winter food: sheep also they have in great numbers, and tho' the wool does not equal the best in England or Spain, yet it is much better than is produced in many of our counties, and makes cloth that answers exceedingly well for the general wear of the province, fine as well as coarse cloths; and accordingly, almost all the farmers, and their servants, with the lower classes of other sorts, are clad in it; they have no lands in the whole province but what do excellently for feeding sheep, even the very worst tracts maintain great numbers. Sheep are kept in such numbers, that wool might be a valuable article of exportation unwrought, and by a proper policy in the mother country, wool might become as good an import from the colonies as any other. . . .

And this mention of cattle leads me to observe, that most of the farmers in this country are, in whatever concerns cattle, the most negligent ignorant set of men in the world. Nor do I know any country in which animals are worse treated. Horses are in general, even valuable ones, worked hard, and

starved: they